Two-hour alert at Bangalore airport cargo complex after security hoax

All the employees at the complex were searched as part of the security measure, police sources said.

A suspected hoax report of a man entering the cargo complex at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bangalore on Thursday with a gun resulted in a couple of hours of tension on Thursday as the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) evacuated all employees and conducted a search.

Airport police sources said CISF personnel guarding the airport conducted a search of the complex and verified the identities of all employees before concluding that the report of someone entering the facility with a gun was a hoax.

The CISF evacuated all employees from the cargo complex at around 2 pm and carried out searches till 4 pm. All the employees at the complex were searched as part of the security measure, police sources said.

“There were more than 600 employees inside the complex when the report of a man entering the complex with a gun emerged,” a police officer said.

According to the police, CISF personnel at the cargo complex were informed by a customs official that a person had entered the complex with a weapon. The CISF personnel informed their control room and following the arrival of additional deployments began a search of the entire cargo complex premises for a ‘person carrying a revolver’.

Employees working in the complex panicked after the CISF raised a security alert. “We have been informed that someone has entered the complex with a revolver and we have been asked to leave the premises,” an employee at the complex said. Another employee said a stranger entered into the complex with a revolver by claiming to be a customs officer. He was spotted in a CCTV camera and a high alert was issued.

The joint commissioner of police, law and order (west) S Ravi said that the no report was place before the police about the incident that occurred inside the airport terminal which is secured by the CISF. A customs official deputy commissioner Naveen Kushalappa, who is in charge of the air cargo complex, also said that he was not aware of the incident.